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I agree that Rick did make some good points at times. Unfortunately, he spent too much time trying unfocused. For what it is worth, in the “candidate match” questionnaires, Santorum comes out as “closest to my tendencies”, so I have been pulling for him since last year.

However ...

Tonight, I believe that what happened is that the news of the day had everyone off balance. I suspect that Rick and Mitt were going expecting to harvest a lot of hay from Newt due to the news. However, Mr.Newt just newtered them completely from the first few minutes, and may well have thrown their whole strategies into question. Rick did not recover in time (and he had to be the more expectant) but Mitt did recover with his “get to the issues”. RPaul was an afterthought.

Through the rest of the evening, many questions were off balance as a result. Santorum expected to be able to score by simple “I’m not Newt (and implication I am better than Romney)” and have a big swing in the polls. He realized after a while that was not the case - perhaps when Mitt made the “get to the issues” answer. That made him desperate at times trying to draw distinctions and pick a fight with Newt when he should instead have been just himself.

1) Newt could have had a terrible day, but fended off a huge threat to his candidacy and prevailed today as a result.
2) Mitt was “me too” today, for the most part - I actually only remember his “I don’t know how many years of taxes I will release” answer - not a good sign for him.
3) RPaul was pretty much a non-factor and will gain no help from today.
4) Rick’s good answers (abortion, etc.) may help him hold, but I suspect his bad answers (Like SOPA) along with his desperate tone will see him drop when votes are counted.

Thanks for the thread, kristinn.